SecondHand Emotion
by Lady Razorsharp
Summary: Eight-year old Mitsuko's world is turned upside down with a shocking revelation. Pre-series.


I don't own Android Kikaider: The Animation, Isihimori Pro/SME Visual Works Inc. does. I do, however, own this original story.

AN: I've only seen the 12 episodes of the series once, so forgive me if I take a few liberties.

Second-Hand Emotion

By the Lady Razorsharp

What's love got to do, got to do with it?

What's love but a second-hand emotion?

What's love got to do, got to do with it?

Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

--Tina Turner

His nose buried in the sheaf of papers in his hand, Dr. Komyoji pushed open the door to the main floor of the house. A high-pitched squeal punctuated the air above the sounds of the television in the living room, and a pink-and-black blur flew toward him out of his peripheral vision.

"Daddy!"__

Komyoji looked up just in time to see Mitsuko, his eight-year old daughter, hurl herself at him with arms outstretched. With a grin and a rustle of paper, Komyoji hugged the girl.  Had it been only yesterday that he had swung her up in his arms, her rich baby giggle echoing through the house? Now she was nearly half as tall as he was, and Masaru was the baby. Where had the years gone?

"Mitsu-chan," he breathed, stroking her raven-dark hair as she snuggled her head against his lab coat. He could feel her heart beating, quick with the surge of youth and life. 

"I've missed you, Daddy," Mitsuko said, her words muffled.  "You're always working so much."

He sighed inwardly. How could he possibly make her understand? Soon enough, she would have to know the truth, and for the time being, Komyoji was determined to keep the innocence and wonder he saw in Mitsuko's eyes. "I know, precious one, I know."  He knelt down in front of her, dropping down to her eye level.  "How was school today?"

Mitsuko beamed at her father with eyes bright as a blackbird's.  "It was great! We learned how to say 'hello' in different languages!"

Komyoji grinned. "Ah, I see. Well, here's a quiz: how do you say it in English?"

Mitsuko frowned. "You had to pick the hard one, don't you?" She thought for a moment.  "Heu-roh. " She made a face. "Ugh, my mouth doesn't want to do that!"

"It was very good, Mitsu-chan," Komyoji nodded. The girl radiated pleasure at his praise, and Komyoji was suddenly aware of how little of it he ever gave her. 

_After the project's over,_ he told himself, as he had a hundred times before._ Just a few more months, then I can take Mitsuko to school every day. I can read to her at night, and help her with her homework.  Just a little longer…_

"You're very smart; you take after your mother." He patted Mitsuko on the head and stood, glancing around the room.  "Speaking of, where is she?"

"She's putting Maseru down for his nap." She sighed. "Babies sure do sleep a lot. It's kind of boring."

Komyoji smiled down at his precocious little girl. "I remember a baby who did the very same thing, and her name was Mitsuko."

Mitsuko's cheeks flushed. "Oh. I suppose babies need a lot of sleep, right?"

"Right." Komyoji patted Mitsuko's shoulder.  "Don't worry. Masaru will be awake before you know it and you two can play. He's got a lot to learn, Mitsuko.  You've got to promise me that you'll teach him when the time comes."

"Like how to ride a bike, and tie his shoes, and skip stones across the koi pond?"

Komyoji's eyes widened at the last item. "The poor fish! Who taught you how to skip stones across the koi pond?"

Mitsuko flushed beet red. "Professor Gill taught me. He came to see Mommy one day when she still had Masaru in her tummy."  She frowned up at her father. "Mommy wasn't feeling good and had to go inside for a while, and while we were waiting for her to come back, he showed me how."

Something began to jangle a warning in the back of Komyoji's mind, and he stiffened at Gill's name on his daughter's lips. _When was that? Where was I? He tried desperately to cast back into his memory for a visit from Gill in the last few months, but all he saw were visions of the lab; diagrams, readouts, the half-finished body lying on the table._

Komyoji realized Mitsuko was tugging on his sleeve. "Daddy? What's wrong? Am I a very wicked girl for scaring the poor fish?" Tears stood in her eyes, threatening to fall at any moment, and he dropped to one knee to wipe them away.

"No, Mitsu-chan, you're not a wicked girl. I'm sure the fish have forgotten all about it. Just be good from now on."  He hugged her tight as she sniffled against his neck. "Okay, you go and start your homework. I'm going upstairs to talk to Mommy."

"Okay," Mitsuko nodded. "Can we go to the park with Mommy and Masaru tomorrow?"

Komyoji stopped on the bottom step, feeling his heart pull in two different directions. One half desperately wanted to get back to his laboratory, where the spirit of his slain son, Ichjiro, laid waiting for Komyoji to breathe life back into him. The other wanted to spend time with his living children, to enjoy them and watch them grow.  _Is there room for both in my heart?  Komyoji anguished, watching Mitsuko's hopeful face.  "We'll see, precious one.  Go on now."_

Mitsuko nodded sadly. "Okay, Daddy," she whispered, her slippered feet padding against the wooden floor toward her room.

After checking on a soundly sleeping Masaru, Komyoji tapped on the door to the master bedroom. "Suki, are you awake?" He called softly, remembering his wife's habit during her pregnancy of resting in the afternoons. Masaru was an energetic and happy baby, and Komyoji was sure that Suki would welcome the chance to rest.

From the sight that greeted him on the other side of the door, Komyoji realized he needn't have bothered trying to be quiet. Suki was nowhere to be found, but an open suitcase lay on the bed, articles of clothing and odds and ends stacked neatly beside.  Frowning, Komyoji turned toward the bathroom, and came face to face with his wife, who had an armful of toiletries.

"Suki, what's going on? Where are you going?"

"What does it look like? I'm leaving," Suki said, pushing past Komyoji.

"You mean you're going on a trip?" Relief flooded Komyoji's chest; there was an explanation to his wife's behavior. "I've heard of this happening. It's called post-partum depression."  He stood behind her and patted her shoulders, but she flinched and he dropped his hands. "It's common enough. If you need to get away for a few days, I can manage the children."

"No, Komyoji, I mean I'm leaving."  She continued to pack her suitcase, her movements smooth and methodical. "My work is done. I won't be coming back."

In horror, Komyoji grabbed Suki by the shoulders and turned her to face him. "What do you mean, 'your work is done'?"  When she remained silent and stony-faced, Komyoji shook her a little. "Answer me, woman!"

Suki's deep black eyes blazed in anger. "Take your hands off of me," she spat, her voice low and dangerous.

Obliging her mainly out of shock—he had never thought his sweet-faced wife capable of such a tone—Komyoji let go, and Suki returned her attention to her suitcase.  "I meant what I said. My work is done. Gill has recalled me, and I'm going."

"Gill?" His friend's name—or was it former friend, now?—again hung in the air like an ominous storm cloud. "You've been…working…for Gill?"

"Yes. I report to him twice a month."  Suki smirked, folding a skirt in half, then in quarters. "It's made for a very convenient arrangement, since you're mucking around in that hole you call a laboratory twenty hours out of every twenty-four."

A sudden jolt of anger shot through Komyoji's body, and he ripped the skirt out of Suki's hands. "Which one of us is Masaru's father?" he raged. "Whose son is he?" He clenched his fists. "Damnit, woman, I've already had one son taken from me. I'll be damned if I let Gill have Masaru!"

Suki's laugh was mocking. "Don't worry, Komyoji. He's all yours. You'll know for sure when he grows up to be just like you, with an IQ so high it scares off any girl who dares get close, and a personality as thick as stone." She snatched up the skirt and found a place where Komyoji had torn the fabric in his anger. "Look, you've ruined it. It's worthless, now." She wadded up the skirt and put it in the trash.

The world was spinning faster and faster, but Komyoji couldn't find the brakes. "If my IQ was so high that it scares women off," he heard himself ask tartly, "Why is it that you married me, Suki?"

"Why?" Suki laughed again. "Simple. It was part of my orders. Remember when Gill introduced us?" She fixed Komyoji with a narrowed obsidian gaze. "Oh, you were so pitiful that day, the grieving father, the lonely widower."  She stepped up very close to him, her smile saccharine-sweet. "All I had to do was just smile and tell you how sorry I was about your loss, and maybe put my hand on yours…" She brought his hand between them, clasping it between her own. "There, you see?" Suki's voice was soft. "You were blind and stupid and so trusting. You gave me every piece of information I ever wanted about the Gemini Project, and I handed it over to Gill."

Komyoji looked into Suki's eyes, spellbound, lost in the memory of that day. It was true; Gill brought Suki to lunch that afternoon, and it was as if an angel had descended from heaven to brighten a dark world. Looking at her now, Komyoji realized that the face and the eyes were the same, except where there had been compassion, there now gleamed hatred and malice.  "Suki," he whispered, pulling her into him and pressing his lips hard against hers.

With a banshee scream, Suki ripped her hands from Komyoji's and bit down hard on his lip. When she could taste blood, she let go, and whirled away from him to stand with her back against the armoire.  "You _bastard!  Don't you ever come near me again!" _

Despite the hurricane of invective raging against him, Komyoji reached for her. "Suki, please—"

"_Stay away from me!"  She grabbed up a heavy vase and swung it at him. "I did everything I was supposed to. I let you fall in love with me. I married you." She shuddered. "I did my wifely duty, and I bore your children. _And it was all a lie!_"_

Komyoji took two steps toward her, but she swung the vase at him again, growling like a tigress. "It wasn't a lie! We…we fell in love! Mitsuko and Masaru were created out of that love! I don't know what Gill's done to you, but this isn't you, Suki!" He tried to get close again, but jumped back after the vase narrowly missed his head. "You're my wife. I love you. I love our children." He realized that his face was wet; he didn't remember when the tears started. "It was real, Suki. Please, you've got to believe me."

Suki's body was rigid with hate. "Get out of my sight."

Downstairs, Mitsuko had heard the shouting in her parent's room and looked up at the ceiling. She was a little scared, but her mother had told her before that grownups disagree sometimes, and shout and say things that they don't mean, just because they're angry. 

When Masaru began to fuss in the next room, Mitsuko laid down her pencil and padded into her brother's nursery. It was cool and quiet, with blue-painted walls and a carpet printed with sailboats.  Mitsuko knelt down to stroke the dark fuzz on Masaru's head through the crib rails.

"Don't worry, Masaru," she soothed, as her brother turned his gaze to her and gurgled happily in recognition of a familiar face. "Daddy and Mommy sometimes disagree. It doesn't mean that they don't love each other, or that they don't love you."

She smiled, feeling a warm stirring in her heart when she looked at her little brother. "Daddy says I have to teach you things when you get older."  Mitsuko leaned her head against the bars. "I know Daddy said I couldn't," she whispered conspiratorially, "but I might teach you to skip stones across the koi pond anyway. But you can't _ever_ tell him I said that."

Footsteps on the stairs made Mitsuko jump up and run down the hallway. "Mommy! Daddy!" she called, but she stopped short at the base of the stairs as her parents descended the steps in silence. Her father's face was wet, she noticed, and her mother had her coat on and a suitcase in her hand.

"Where are you going, Mommy? Are you going on a trip? Can me and Masaru come too?" Mitsuko hung on to the handle of her mother's suitcase, but recoiled in hurt and confusion as her mother yanked it away.

Suki didn't answer her daughter; instead, she marched across the foyer to the door, her street shoes sounding loud in a space usually trod only by slippered feet. Komyoji grabbed Mitsuko and held her fast when she would have followed her mother out the door.

"Mommy?" Mitsuko tried to pull away from her father. "Where are you going? Come back, Mommy!"

Komyoji's heart broke as Mitsuko strained against him. In the nursery, Masaru began to wail, responding to the stress tones in his sister's voice.  "_Mommy!_" Mitsuko shrilled. "Don't leave, I'll be good!_ Mommy!"_

Mitsuko was in hysterics by the time the door shut behind Suki. Komyoji knelt in front of Mitsuko and tried to calm her, and for a moment, it was as useless as trying to tame a wild bear cub. "Mitsuko! Listen to me!" He put his hands on either side of her tear-streaked face and made her look at him. "Listen to me, Mitsuko. Mommy had to leave us. She won't be coming back. You've got to take care of Masaru now, he needs you."  Komyoji hugged his daughter fiercely to him. "You're going to have to be Masaru's mommy now. You're strong and you can do it."

"B-bu-ut who-oo-'s g-gon-na feed him," Mitsuko hiccoughed. "I don't kn-now how."

"Yes you do, Mitsuko," Komyoji said, pulling his daughter away to look her in the eyes. "Remember how Mommy mixes the powder and the water and the milk? You can do that."

"Y-yes," Mitsuko conceded.

"And you know when to change his diaper, and how to give him a bath, don't you?"

The tears were nearly gone, and the sobs were slowing. "I s-supp-pose I know how to do l-lots of things."

"Now, you go in the kitchen and make Masaru's formula. Remember, if we work hard, we won't be sad. All right?" At Mitsuko's nod, Komyoji stood and steered her toward the kitchen. "I'm going to go turn off the lights downstairs, and then we can have supper."

"Daddy?"

Komyoji turned back at the sound of his daughter's voice. She was standing in the kitchen doorway, and it struck him just how small she really was. "Yes?"

"You said if we work hard, we won't be sad. Is that true?"

Numb to the soul, Komyoji nodded. "Yes. It's true."

Downstairs, Komyoji stood over the half-finished mannequin lying on the table. The faceplate had the features of a boy long-dead, and he ran his fingertips along the hard plastic and metal cheek. The body was the result of Komyoji's own direction to his daughter; the work had numbed the pain of losing Ichjiro. Now the pain came flooding back tenfold, along with the realization that Suki had given Gill every secret, every clue to unlocking the mysteries lying dormant beneath his hands.

He grabbed up a mallet and raised it high above the delicate circuitry of the brain casing.  He saw himself in his mind's eye, bashing the faceplate in with the mallet, destroying months of work in mere seconds, mere heartbeats.

It would be like Ichjiro dying all over again. The mallet fell from Komyoji's nerveless fingers to clang against the cement floor.

"Forgive me, Jiro," Komyoji sobbed, crumpling in a heap against the table.

--End--


End file.
